Indian Express: Hockey World League Final 2015: In football-mad Germany hockey shows the way

For Germans, the benchmark in efficiency seems to be hockey, even though it might not be among the country’s most-followed sport.

Soon after he took charge of Germany’s men’s hockey team, Valentin Altenburg was asked when, not if, would he make a switch to football coaching. It was meant to be a question in jest. But Altenburg knew the questioner was only half joking. After all, his two predecessors have taken that route.

A fortnight ago, the German hockey federation was finalising its squad and travel plans for the Hockey World League finals in Raipur that began on Friday. Until Markus Weise dropped the bomb. He decided he was stepping down as the chief coach of the highly-successful national team. And when Weise informed that he was joining the German football federation (DFB), the federation’s president Wolfgang Hillman couldn’t mask his frustration.

It wasn’t the first time the football federation was poaching the chief coach of the men’s hockey team. Nine years ago, German football team’s chief coach Juergen Klinsmann and DFB’s general manager Olivier Bierhoff tried to woo then hockey coach Bernhard Peters. So Hillman’s frustration was understandable, especially with the Olympics less than a year away.

The football world continues to be smitten by Germany’s highly-successful youth programme and the efficiency of the senior team. But for the Germans, the benchmark seems to be hockey, even though it might not be among the country’s most-followed sport. The methods used to analyse a players’ performance and fitness along with the training theory are believed to be much advanced in hockey than most other sports, giving hockey trainers an edge over others, at least in Germany.

“The domestic structure of hockey, right from grassroots level to the senior team is what attracts them. The consistent success of the national squad shows that hockey has been doing something right and I believe that is what attracts them to hockey coaches,” says Altenburg, who was the head coach of the junior German team and Dabang Mumbai in Hockey India League before being named Weise’s successor.

Hockey’s best

Weise, 52, won back-to-back gold medals at the last two Olympics with the German men’s team, adding to his 2004 triumph with the women’s team. He is considered to be one of the finest brains in hockey. Last year, he guided a below-par team to Champions Trophy gold in Bhubaneswar, silencing critics who believed the German team was on the wane.

He has been appointed as the head of DFB’s academy in Frankfurt. The academy has been described as the future of German football. There have been apprehensions in larger circles when a coach with zero football background is appointed by the federation — Bierhoff once said it was a ‘frightening’ prospect for many — but hockey’s technological demands have given the coaches an edge.

Peters, who coached the men’s team to World Cup titles in 2002 and 2006, was approached by Klinsmann to be the federation’s sports director. While that deal did not materialise, Peters went on to become the Director of Sport and Youth Development at German club Hoffenhiem, then in the third tier. They rapidly rose through the ranks and are now playing in the first division. Last year, Peters joined Bundesliga club Hamburg as their director of sport.
Naturally, many expect Altenburg to follow suit. “That’s what they asked me first up, will you also join football? It’s great that hockey is contributing to football’s success in Germany. We are champions in both sports. It shows we have been doing something right. But I don’t think about football. Right now, I’m focussed on Rio. That’s my target,” Altenburg says.